March 29, 2013

Our last update focused on our polar research project. Since that time, we have completed another big research project: biographies! Each child chose a famous person (preferably found on our kid-friendly search engine called Pebble Go). Using some of the skills introduced in the polar research project, the children read about and then took notes on their famous person. They used what they learned to create a life-size (well...let's call it "first grader size") replica of the chosen person. We had a wonderful time tracing, drawing, cutting, measuring, and painting our people. Currently, they are hanging around (literally) our classroom.

We are in full play mode now. Almost every morning, we can be found in Estes Multipurpose room rehearsing for our play, The Little Red Hen. The play is a true, hands-on way to develop both gross motor skills (we do a lot of dancing) as well as  reading/speaking expression (also known as prosody). In addition, the children have to use their ability to follow directions and work cooperatively.

In math, we have taken the last two weeks to slow down our pace and go more in-depth with our numeration skills. We have also worked on fact families, which show the relationship between addition and subtraction. We were especially lucky to schedule four extra sessions with Mrs. Coleman in the math lab last week.

Finally, here is a short snippet of grandparents & special friends day. It was wonderful.

Polar research - complete!

It has been awhile since I last updated our blog. We have been a busy crew! We completed our polar research projects, which you may view by clicking on this link.

When viewing the link, you will notice that each child has his/her own file that includes a picture created in Hyperstudio. We created these pictures with Mrs. Hurd in the computer lab. Our next step was to organize the information collected by each child. This was the most challenging part! It takes a lot of planning and thought to organize research information in the form of notes into clear sentences. Each child wrote a short book about either a penguin or a polar bear. Once the book was finished, the children practiced reading them to a partner. The children worked on reading with expression and fluency. The final step was to be audio taped. Thanks to Mrs. Hurd and Mrs. Gunn, we completed the audio taping quickly (and painlessly!)

While the project seem fairly simple, the skills each child practiced were actually quite important in terms of learning. This project focused on: early research skills, determining the importance of facts, converting research facts into clearly written information, fine motor skills (via the artwork), and reading expression. Most importantly, however, was the excitement the children showed about research.